Bruce Fenton: Bringing Cypherpunks to Wall Street

Bruce Fenton, a multifaceted participant in the cryptocurrency community, told the crowd at World Blockchain Forum in New York that Bitcoin is in fact a political movement, and the Cypherpunks’ ideals of the 90s will swallow Wall Street whole. How does he know this? Well, he’s been on Wall Street his whole life.

How Cypherpunks Will Eat Wall Street

At the World Blockchain Forum in New York, Fenton — CEO of Chainstone Labs, host of Satoshi Roundtable, and board member of Medici Ventures, tZero, and the Bitcoin Foundation — proclaimed that Bitcoin is indeed a political movement.

Bitcoin was inspired by the Cypherpunks, he said, and used several of the technologies they developed. In other words, Bitcoin was built on ideologies and technologies designed to overthrow centralized systems in a very political way.

By extension, any projects dealing with a public blockchain share those political roots, and will contribute to breaking down centralized systems.

“It’s important to know the roots of this stuff,” Fenton told the audience.

“If you don’t know it and you don’t appreciate it, and you’re one of these people who say, ‘well it’s ok other than all those libertarians,’ well then you’re in the wrong space.”

“[Cypherpunk] is the core of what this [technology] was built on,” Fenton concluded.

Bruce Fenton speaking at WBF

Bruce Fenton: From Wall Street to Crypto

In addition to his musings on the Cypherpunks, Fenton told the audience at World Blockchain Forum about his life on Wall Street.

With his mother working for a Wall Street firm, Fenton spent a lot of time there as a child. He said he often played with the revolutionary technologies they had at the time, looking up stock prices and the like.

Fenton eventually started a career on Wall Street, getting his first job at age 14 and ultimately ending up as vice president by age 21 — him being at Morgan Stanley at that time.

And then the internet happened.

After learning of the internet, Fenton wanted to take his work online. So, he started an online financial advising firm, which became very successful over the years.

And then… Bitcoin happened.

Fenton learned of Bitcoin, became fascinated by it — along with its Cypherpunk roots and ideology — and began moving towards that space. Wanting to build a career centered on this technology, Fenton, as he put it, “decimated” his advising firm. He stopped renewing contracts until the business simply ceased to exist.

From there, he moved to the cryptocurrency space and never looked back.

Becoming a Bitcoin Icon

Once he got into the Bitcoin world, Fenton went full-on crypto. In addition to helping establish the Bitcoin Foundation, Fenton began hosting the Satoshi Roundtable — a private meeting of the minds for Bitcoin’s top innovators, developers, and entrepreneurs.

Fenton has also invested in multiple cryptocurrencies and crypto-based startups.

And thus, over the years, Fenton has positioned himself as a staple in the cryptocurrency community, always getting involved and wanting to help move the technology forward.

In addition to his professional work, Fenton told Bitsonline he has started making YouTube videos on various cryptocurrency-based topics. His goal in making these videos, he said, is to help people understand how the technology works and what it needs in order to advance even further.

What’s your take? Do you see Bitcoin as a political project? In what way? Sound off in the comments below?

About Evan Faggart

Evan Faggart is a Senior Editor at Bitsonline. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, he is an experienced cryptocurrency journalist, having worked for some of the biggest publications in the industry. His specialties are the economics and business of cryptocurrency. Follow Evan on Twitter @EvanFaggart